Tag: search marketing

Headstrong often carries a negative meaning, such as someone who is disobedient, determined to get their way. Well, if you want to obtain top rankings and want to drive quality visitor traffic to your site, headstrong might be a good thing.

By headstrong though, I’m not advocating being disobedient, turning to unsavory methods and tactics. To be fair, what I’m really talking about might be better described as head strong. Continue reading “Is Your Website Headstrong?”

As appeared in the Presence Pointers column of the March 2008 issue of “Business Watch” magazine.

Economy got you down? Talk of recession and overall uncertainty keeping you up at night? If you said yes, you can at least take comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone. But the real question is, “what does this mean for your Web presence?”

The thought might surprise you, but possibly now more than ever, your Web focus should be stronger than ever. Let’s take a look at what this economic condition might mean and how we can best position ourselves.

Don’t panic. No deep macroeconomic discussion here. Essentially we are talking about an economic period of negative output — whatever that means. What it means to us is we are going to be more cautious with our money.

As appeared in the Presence Pointers column of the February 2008 issue of “Business Watch” magazine.

If your business doesn’t have a website yet, then this month’s column is especially for you. And even if you do have a site, it may still be worth the read. If you’ve been holding out on making the leap to the web, well it’s time to move past that. Web access is available in more businesses and homes than ever, and thanks to smart phones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, people have access to the web 24/7, just about anywhere they are.

Let’s talk about this thing called “web design.” We’re going to bypass the do-it-yourself discussion. If you want to play around on your own with a hobby site or site for your family, great, but don’t jeopardize the image of your business while trying to learn web design — there’s much more to it than just understanding a little HTML code. Businesses will either have staff on hand or, more likely, will outsource the development of their site. It is very important to understand up front that graphic design and web design are extremely different things. Continue reading “Leap Onto the Web”

Talking with clients, reading countless posts in forums and blogs, and discussions with others within the search marketing world has revealed a fairly common story about rankings in search engines and search marketing. This story illustrates a surprising comparison between search engine marketing and good health and weight loss… “I want to be healthier and lose weight… but I don’t want to have to exercise, I want to be able to eat whatever, whenever and as much as I want… and I want all this by tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, just like dieting, there are people who are ready to answer this call for immediacy in the SEM world with guarantees of overnight, effortless success. And like dieting, most if not all of these “solutions” aren’t worth the time invested in considering them, nor the money spent on them. The reality is, there are no SEM pills that you can simply pop that will jump your website to the top of the search engine ranks or drive tons of new business through your website.

The good news is that there are steps you can take when it comes to SEM that can help you to achieve your goals. There are also plenty of professionals in the SEM world who share this belief as well… and you’ll find that there is probably far more agreement in SEM than in all the dieting crazes. Best of all, the fundamentals are true wherever you are… from South Beach Miami, Florida to Atkins, Iowa to Beverly Hills, California and beyond. Continue reading “Search Engine Marketing Diet”

As appeared in the Presence Pointers column of the December 2007 issue of “Business Watch” magazine.

Each year, the web plays a bigger and bigger role during the holiday season. How this impacts your business may vary, depending first and foremost whether you sell directly online or not, but also whether your customers are locally based. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the web is only important if you sell online or have customers all over the state, country, or throughout the world.

Hopefully you implemented some of the local-focused tips from back in July. If not, it isn’t too late to take action, however the kind of action you take, or don’t take, is very important. If the holiday season represents a sizable portion of your annual sales, now is certainly not the time for redesigning, re-launching, or just about anything else you can think of that begins with “re” in regards to your website. The risks are far too great. Continue reading “Holiday Tips for Retail Procrastinators”